The present invention was developed in response to the problems encountered in harvesting hay. Under current practices, the cutting of the hay is closely followed by a baling operation which discharges the completed bales on the ground as the equipment proceeds along the field. These bales are then retrieved and transported to storage or cattle-feeding areas. This retrieval has been accomplished either through the use of fork-lifts, or by inclinable conveyor-like devices in which the chains are equipped with projecting hooks for engagement with the bales. Either of these pickup machines can operate in conjunction with an auxiliary wagon or vehicle having a storage deck on which the bales can be accumulated so that it becomes unnecessary to head back to the central collecting area with each bale.
The old familiar rectangular bale is being replaced by a cylindrical bale that may be anywhere from 4 to 8 feet in diameter. Experience has shown that these bales possess a very desirable characteristic which follows from the progressive tangential development of the bale in the forming machine. The directional lay of the hay provides a water shed similar to that of a thatch roof. For this reason, these large cylindrical bales can be left standing in the field for long periods of time without risk of spoilage. The bales are usually held together by circumferential strands of twine, and a serious problem has developed in the retrieval of these bales with conventional pickup equipment. Shoving the tines of a fork-lift under a bale in the field has a tendency to disturb the binding strands, which is a difficulty added to the obvious problem of requiring an auxiliary following vehicle to accumulate the bales. When the conveyor-type device is used, the efforts to pull the bale up the incline are complicated by the tendency of the bale to roll back down, as a result of its cylindrical configuration. An attempt to vigorously engage the hooks of the conveyor with the bale produces a tendency to tear the binding strands loose, and claw the bale apart. These problems seem to be inherently associated with these pickup machines, and the present invention has been developed to provide a different approach to handling these rather ungainly objects.